Rama Duwaji, the wife of Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City, apologized in an interview published on Wednesday by the art site Hyperallergic for using the N-word as a 15-year-old in social media posts that a conservative news site recently unearthed.
The news site, The Free Beacon, also reported that when Ms. Duwaji was 15, she had tweeted an abbreviation of a slur for gay people.
“When a tabloid recently published old tweets I wrote as a teenager, I felt a lot of shame being confronted with language I used that is so harmful to others,” she said. “Being 15 doesn’t excuse it. I’ve read and seen a lot of what others have had to say in response, and I understand the hurt I caused and am truly sorry.”
As a teenager, Ms. Duwaji also shared social media posts that said Tel Aviv “shouldn’t exist in the first place,” and celebrated armed “freedom fighters of Palestine,” according to The Free Beacon. Another post that she shared glorified a member of PFLP, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Asked to explain which social media posts Ms. Duwaji was apologizing for, a spokeswoman for the mayor declined to comment.
The Hyperallergic article was written by Hakim Bishara, the editor in chief, who is also an art critic.
In the piece, Mr. Bishara wrote that he met last week with Ms. Duwaji at Gracie Mansion “for a wide-ranging conversation about her art practice and her life as first lady of New York.” It is the first interview the mayor’s wife has granted since Mr. Mamdani took office on Jan. 1.
Mr. Bishara did not appear to directly ask Ms. Duwaji about her social media history; she gave her response after he asked a more general question about whether becoming a public figure had changed her as a person.
Ms. Duwaji also did not appear to address some of her more recent social media activity that has also drawn criticism.
She had liked posts celebrating Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel, right after Oct. 7, 2023. Mr. Mamdani has declined to criticize the posts or address his wife’s actions, saying that she is “a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my City Hall.”
She also attracted scrutiny for providing an illustration for a story included in a compilation curated by Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian American author who has described the Oct. 7 attack as “a spectacular moment that shocked the world.” On Wednesday, Ms. Abulhawa posted on X that “Israelis and all zionists are parasitic filth.”
The mayor said that Ms. Abulhawa’s rhetoric was “patently unacceptable,” adding that his wife had not “engaged with or met with the author.”
Mr. Bishara described Ms. Duwaji’s hand-drawn animation frames, ceramics and paintings. “She left a strong impression as a thoughtful and ethical artist, keen on remaining true to herself amid intense media attention,” he wrote.
Ms. Duwaji told him, “My focus isn’t on being a public figure, but continuing my work with care and responsibility, and allowing my art to speak for itself.”
Ms. Duwaji said her new status as first lady will not affect the focus of her art on world events. “Everything is political: what we choose to show, what we choose to omit, the stories we highlight and the ones we leave in the margins.” she said. “It has and will continue to be important for me to reflect the times around me as an artist.”
Katherine Rosman covers newsmakers, power players and individuals making an imprint on New York City.
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